


pride, desire, and

by starryvin



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mage Origin, Multi, POV Second Person, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-08
Updated: 2015-06-08
Packaged: 2018-04-03 12:38:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4101229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryvin/pseuds/starryvin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He trusts you.</p><p>- - -</p><p>A character exploration of Jowan and a Warden who is just a little too specific to be generic. The timeline is tweaked just slightly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	pride, desire, and

You find him crying.

You have never understood what the difference is. You grew up playing with elves, in a city on the coast, far away from forests and cautionary tales of the Dalish-who-will-eat-your-wives. And you know you are all second-class citizens in the towers. You see his sadness and don't care about his ears.

But you see the way other apprentices talk about him and you feel that you maybe should.

"I don't know what to do," he says, and you don't know what to say.

"They'll come around," you stutter and feel foolish, because you both know that they won't. He shakes his head but doesn't say anything, just turns to you and clings to your neck, and you are thrown off guard by how small he is.

 - - -

The other elves don't want anything to do with him. One of them is from the Denerim alienage too, but you haven't ever asked him if he knows her. You have a nagging feeling he does.

One evening, when you are about to fall asleep, he climbs up to your bed like a long-legged squirrel.

"I'll have nightmares," he says. "Sorry. But I'm small."

You yawn and scoot over to give him space. His green eyes glimmer with thankfulness and the faint light coming from the windows.

"What do you dream about?" he asks after a while.

Closed rooms. Locked doors. The feeling of being too weak. Of never dreaming again.

"Nothing."

He curls up against you.

"I dream of blood." He breathes. "And splinters of wood." He breathes. "And hiding."

You breathe.

"Why?"

He raises his eyes to look at you.

"I killed my parents."

There are tears in his eyes and you remember how vehemently he studies.

 - - -

But it cannot all be because of studying, you think, when you hear Cullen tell another templar that his Harrowing was so quick, so clean, so odd.

You can still wear your sleeves rolled up to your elbows.

You gulp down your fear and your jealousy and your guilt, and calm him down the best you can. Maybe, if he could've, he would have told you that his demon was Pride and he thought it was his friend.

Yours is Desire.

You have seen it many times in your sleep. It calls out to you, honey on its tongue. Its jewelry glimmers in the fade-glow, and you avert your eyes.

That night it is not the same, horned woman. Instead, it is a small figure, covered in rags and frost. It shrieks and you wake him up with your tossing. He climbs up to your bed like a long-legged squirrel.

"What do you dream about?"

Demons. Ice. The feeling of despair, of fear, of frustration because you don't recognize the rags, because nobody has ever warned you against something that can be so persuasive with mere shrieks.

"Closed doors, locked rooms." You breathe. "The feeling of being too weak." You breathe. "Of never dreaming again."

He breathes.

"They will not make you Tranquil."

"I don't know what to do," you say, and a piece falls into its place. He doesn't look so small now, hovering over you with a strange look in his eyes.

When he kisses you, you are still at loss of things you can do.

"I'm sorry," he says, and you get the feeling that he really is.

"I have a girl," you answer, and watch him lower his head in embarrassment.

"I'm sorry," he repeats.

 - - -

It is a simple choice. Give in to despair or give in to Tranquility. The creature shrieks into your ear and the slash is frightening and painful.

Lily's scream is even worse, her face drained of all color. You see the blood all around you as hers and the picture frightens you.

You run.

 - - -

Harrowed mages cannot be made Tranquil, you remind yourself time and time again, when green eyes skip at the edges of your memory. You remember the mage who was thrown into a locked room for a year after he ran away. You don't think about that.

 - - -

The Grey Wardens are dead, almost completely. You are afraid of the man in front of you, but you have no choice. You agree.

It has a name, your demon.

 - - -

You are not a teacher. You want to tell them to take the boy to the Circle and let him be taught by capable people, people who have faced their tests and emerged alive in both spirit and body.

You aren't ready for the monsters. You, it seems, are never ready for the inevitable.

The woman has you thrown into the dungeons. It might've been a relief, but there are corpses there. And they frighten you, even when they merely lay there.

Even more so when you hear them attacking someone.

A dog barks. A mabari, you suppose. A yell in a peculiar accent, one you can't quite place, and in a glee even more peculiar. A shout, calm and collected compared to the barking and yelling. And a voice that shouts commands, harsh and clear like ringing bells in the mountains.

When they emerge, you grasp the bars and whisper his name.

The giant – qunari, you realize – shoves him behind the three of them and raises his sword, the blond elf whips out his gory daggers. The mabari growls at you and readies himself for a lunge. You are thankful of the bars.

But...

"Stop!" he yells, and the three guardians glance at him with various levels of questions in their eyes. The dog growls again and he whistles. "Girl, come here."

She goes, tail drooping a little, and he steps forward.

He looks better than you, you are sure of that. But not by far. His face is splattered with stale blood of moving corpses, his staff taller than supposed to be. And he looks ill in a way you never saw anyone in the Circle look.

"Jowan?" he asks, and his voice is a quiet little thing, laced with fear and suspicion and sadness. "Is that really you?"

"A fine question," the blond says, and you recognize the accent as Antivan.

"It is tricking you," the giant says.

He stills, and if he could've, he would have told you that his demon is Pride and he thought it was his friend. That it told him never to trust anyone, and that guarding his back there is an assassin and a murderer.

"It is me," you say.

He trusts you.

**Author's Note:**

> Everyone else is crying about Tamlen. I am here weeping over my stupid little blood mage friend.  
> Please, leave a comment if you enjoyed!! And if you didn't, please tell me why, I am trying to improve.


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